“Entertaining Mr. Sloane” Cast & Performance Change

Rancho Mirage, CA – Desert Rose Productions, Inc., the Valley’s live stage company serving the LGBT community, announced today that, due to a cast member’s illness, they have recast a leading role and postponed the opening of “Entertaining Mr. Sloane” at The Commissary in Rancho Mirage. The production, originally scheduled to open on Friday, February 15, 2013, will now open February 22, 2013 for a four-week run.

“We are proud to announce that Actors’ Equity member Valorie Armstrong will play the part of ‘Kath’ in the production. She joins the talented company of Terry Huber, Hal O’Connell and Zach Welsheimer in the witty dark comedy of bad manners and questionable morals.” – remarks Artistic Director Jim Strait

Joe Orton wrote three plays and many short scripts during his reign as Britain’s Bad Boy of the theatre. “Entertaining Mr. Sloane” was his first full-length work. Kath, a lonely mid-aged woman living on the outskirts of a garbage dump in London, takes in a border, Mr. Sloane. Mr. Sloane is an opportunistic young man. Kath takes a shining to Mr. Sloane. Kath’s brother, Ed, also takes a liking to Mr. Sloane. But who’s to get him? Then there’s Dadda, Kath’s and Ed’s half-blind old father, who doesn’t like Mr. Sloane at all – much to his ultimate regret…

The play opened in London in 1964 and stunned audiences with its amoral characters and ambiguous sexuality. Subsequent productions on the West End and on Broadway were equally controversial. It has been revived several times in New York and Europe and is now considered one of the best and most imaginative plays Joe Orton wrote in his short career.